The CNIL noted serious irregularities in data management of visa applicants in France.
After recently accusing the Police, on January 31 the CNIL publicly called out the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs for their negligent, at best, and in any case illegal, management of visa applicants in the Schengen area. If the personal data regulator has come to this, it is because it does not have the power to impose a fine on the State, but considers the situation serious enough
to report it.
How the Schengen File works
If European states retain decision-making power over whether or not to grant visas on their national territory, all those who are members of the Schengen area are necessarily affected by such decisions, even when they come from other countries. This is why the European Visa Information System (VIS) was created, a central file which brings together the data of visa applicants for all the States concerned.
Also indicated in this file are people wanted by the police or for extradition, but also those who have disappeared or who are prohibited from staying.
In France, if there is a national portal which allows access to the VIS and to query it for any visa application, this file also has 157 copies, or one for each consular post in the country.
Illicit and dated copies of the file in France
And if the system has worked like this for years, each national personal data regulator is required to carry out an audit of the Schengen area’s information systems every four years. This is where the CNIL comes into play.
It turns out that the European regulations regarding the use of this specific information system explicitly prohibit making copies of it. You had one job.
Beyond this clear breach, the CNIL audit noted other, more technical problems directly linked to this operation. Indeed, in practice, making these copies will create a problem of inaccurate data, because the synchronization between French and European data is not always perfect.
The CNIL’s call to order from these two ministries is, however, more symbolic than anything else: as the body itself recognizes, it does not have the power to impose a fine on the State. But above all, it concerns a system which no longer exists: the national portal and its copies were replaced in May 2023 by France Visas, a system which complies with the requirements of European regulations.
Source : CNIL
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